Sunday, December 10, 2006

A woman staying at a northeast Georgia motel this week shot herself while trying to light a cigarette with a pistol she mistook for a cigarette lighter, police said.Police said Olivia Hutcherson, 21, of Anderson, S.C., had been arrested for fighting at a Waffle House shortly before she shot herself in the hand with a .22-caliber pistol she had tried to use to light a cigarette.Lavonia Police Chief Randy Shirley said Hutcherson was staying with two other people at a Best Western motel at about 6 a.m. on Sunday.When she reached onto a nightstand for what she thought was a lighter, she instead grabbed a pistol owned by Bobby Brown, 56, of Royston, Shirley said.About 90 minutes earlier, Hutcherson had slapped a man in the face three times after she said he touched her inappropriately, according to police reports.Five witnesses told police they never saw the man touch her."She stated that someone had grabbed her from behind and she turned and struck the first person she saw," an officer wrote in the report.